Jesus Heals the Blind Mute Man

They brought to Jesus a man who was possessed by a demon, an evil spirit. As a result, the man could not see nor speak. When Jesus saw him, he made the demon leave the man. He now had his vision and could talk!

The people were amazed. They knew according to scriptures, Messiah had been promised and he would be of the family of David.

They said, "Can this be the Son of David?" (the promised Messiah)

The Pharisees though did not accept Jesus as the Messiah. He did not fit their expectation of how they thought the Messiah would act.
They thought the Messiah would come as a king and free their nation. "No," they reasoned "this cannot be the Messiah."

They accused Jesus of casting out demons by the power of Beelzebub, the prince of devils.

Jesus knew their thoughts and told them if the demons were cast out by the power of the devil, it would be the devil fighting against himself. And surely they didn't believe that Satan would fight against himself and destroy his own kingdom.

Furthermore if they were going to say Jesus was casting out devils by the power of Satan, whose power was enabling their own people to cast out demons?

This miracle is at the end of the summer of his second year. It is the twelfth recorded miracle of Jesus.

Application

It was a real dilemma for the Jewish rulers. If Jesus was truly casting out demons by the power of God (which he was), then they were making a big mistake by rejecting him. This was a very serious matter for them to witness such a miracle and attribute it to the devil!

Zip Code 12-000

Memory Hook

Our memory story will help us remember this man. He has a beautiful gold-trimmed hat on his head. He operates the elevator in the building. He may be an unusual elevator operator because he can neither see nor talk, but for 12 years he has not made a mistake taking people to their right floor. His job has been rather monotonous - up and down, up and down, up and down. But he is kind and loves people and his job. He can do the job well!

His fingers literally fly over the buttons as they call out the numbers for their floors. In fact the company has just given him that nice hat to wear on his head. It has a solid gold #12 on the crown that he enjoys showing off to his friends who ride with him!

head+12 = Matthew 12
(12-000)

This zip code means the account is found only in the 12th chapter of Matthew (12) and not found in Mark, Luke, or John (000)